Night of the Collector
by Scottenkainen
Summary: Avengers 119 remixed. It's 1973 all over again and Hawkeye, Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, the Black Widow, Hercules, and the Swordsman are still Avengers. Guest starring Mantis and the Vision. Expect many changes from what you know! Finished!
1. Chapter 1

Night of the Collector

Original by Steve Englehart – 1973

Revised by Scott Casper – 2007

Cast: (Avengers) Hawkeye (Clint Barton, chairman), Quicksilver (Pietro), Scarlet Witch (Wanda), Black Widow (Natasha Barton, married to Clint), the Swordsman, Hercules; (guest-stars) Mantis, the Vision, Cynthia, Tom Fagan, the Black Knight (Dane Whitman; mentioned); (villains) the Collector, Maha Yogi (cameo), Dormammu (mentioned).

October 30, 1973. Tuesday, late afternoon.

The war was over. The dimension-spanning conflict between the Avengers, the Defenders, and the dread Dormammu had ended, leaving a mind-drained Maha Yogi in the hands of the immortal Hercules. The assembled Avengers exited the XV-15 V/STOL plane they had borrowed from SHIELD. Quicksilver was quick, as always, to help down his sister, the Scarlet Witch. Hawkeye moved to help down his wife, the Black Widow, but she hopped out on her own. The Swordsman watched the captive Maha Yogi. The alien called the Watcher had said the Maha Yogi's mind was that of a toddler's now and may never recover, but the Swordsman had been a "bad guy" too long to trust one and suspected the Maha Yogi might somehow be faking. But the Swordsman was shocked out of his thoughts when the Avengers' ally, Mantis, helped him down out of the plane.

"My love, this one feels pain inside you," Mantis said. "You spoke of a wound?"

The Swordsman shrugged it off, trying to preserve his manliness. "Mantis, you feel too much! One of the facets of being the Swordsman is living with nicks and cuts. Really, I just felt weak for a moment. "I'm fine now."

The Scarlet Witch felt much the same. "Pietro, please!" she said in a hushed voice to her over-protective brother. "You promised me you would not embarrass me like this anymore. I am not a little girl!"

"Then just see it as insurance," Clint butted in, his capable wife almost to the mansion's roof entrance without him. "We got to take care of our prize Avenger who almost beat Dormammu all by herself!"

"Now you are being too kind too," Wanda said, but her blush said that she was not angry anymore.

"Clint," Natasha called out to her husband as she turned around, "is Mantis cleared for rooftop security?"

"Aw, nuts—" Clint said, as turrets began to pop up around the rooftop.

"Watch out!" Natasha called out. "Our rooftop defense is activated!"

"Scatter!" the Swordsman told everyone, but he moved to stand in front of Mantis.

It was too late. Stun beams lanced out and struck every Avenger, except Pietro and Mantis. While Mantis could only dodge, Pietro was free to act. The stun beams might have been faster, but the machines that swiveled to try to catch Pietro in the beams seemed to be moving in slow motion to him. He raced around them with ease to the door, took off his glove, and used his palm print on the wall-mounted ID scanner to make the defense machines all pause. He patted down his costume quickly and lost a precious moment realizing he did not have the roof access key on him! He scooped up the one the Natasha had been holding and used it. At the turn of the key, the defenses all shut down and the stun beams turned off.

"Was this one responsible?" Mantis asked as everyone rose to their feet.

"No, we were all careless," Wanda responded as an admonishment toward all.

"We're all edgy after what we've been through," the Swordsman said. "It was bound to make us forgetful. But we do have some important things to keep in mind…" he said as he reached where Hercules was helping up the whimpering Maha Yogi.

"I understand, Swordsman, and I have already decided what to do with the Maha Yogi." But Hercules would not elaborate further until they were all indoors and boarding the elevator to the lower floors. Clint, the Swordsman, and Mantis accompanied the demigod and his prisoner. "Though his brain is addled," Hercules continued, "still is the Maha Yogi a dangerous man and must be secured. We should secure him in our own holding cell until such time as the authorities of this country can assure us his powers can be neutralized and he can be held in one of their facilities."

"No argument from me, Herc," Clint said. "If he's powerful enough that you're worried about him, that's good enough for me to worry."

When they exited on the ground level, it was no surprise to see Natasha had raced them and won by taking the stairs. But instead of reaching out for her husband, she grabbed Mantis by the arm. "Mantis, I want to speak with you," she said.

"Of course," Mantis said, and waited. "Oh, you mean in private. Very well. This one will return soon, my love," she told the Swordsman. After going through the gallery to the kitchen, Mantis prompted Natasha, asking, "What can this one do to be of service?"

"Well," Natasha began. She was famished after their long mission and the kitchen smelled so good with everything their butler, Jarvis, was cooking for them. Well, no one would miss an apple, she thought, so she grabbed one to tide her over. "So far, all we have is the Swordsman's word that we should trust you," she said between bites. "So far, you've given us no reason to doubt either of you, but we know nothing of your background, and I would like to. Trust me; we're a very understanding bunch. I think Hercules is the only one among us who doesn't have something they are ashamed of in their past -- and even that might not be true if Roman mythology is to be believed."

"Oh, is that all?" Mantis asked. "You sounded so ominous before. This one expected you to ask for my complete personal history, but it would be a most uninteresting recital. I have nothing in my past worth speaking."

Natasha studied Mantis' face between bites of her apple, searching for deception, but could only see a passivity bordering on naivety. When that look did start to fade, Natasha was surprised to see it replaced by one of discomfort. Now Mantis was rubbing her forehead like she had a migraine.

"What's the matter?" Natasha prompted her.

"This one…does not know," Mantis said. "There is a feeling…of danger…but this one can sense no more."

"Danger, here? To the Avengers?" Natasha prodded.

"This one can sense no more," Mantis repeated, as if annoyed by the question.

"Okay, let's tell the others," Natasha said. She had a good guess that the Swordsman was in the infirmary attending to the injury he kept insisting he didn't have, but that was the last place she wanted to take Mantis. Then she'd have to listen to Mantis cooing after him like a love-sick dove again. She suppressed a shudder and resolved to find her someone else. A quick check with the kitchen intercom revealed that Hercules was at the sub-basement level prisoner cell, Wanda was in her room, Pietro was in their conference room, and Clint was in their room, getting ready to take a shower. As much as she wanted to be there for that, it was yet another situation she did not want to lead Mantis into. That left Wanda and Pietro, and of the two of them…

"Wanda, can we come in?" Natasha asked.

Wanda had doffed her headband, cape, gloves, and boots, trading them all for a robe over the rest of her unitard. "Certainly," Wanda said, rising from her bed. "What's wrong?"

"Mantis had a premonition of danger," Natasha explained. "I know you don't have a danger sense, but you do have good intuition. Do you feel anything?"

"…No," Wanda said, searching her feelings, "but maybe I can help. My hex power might be able to briefly augment your senses, Mantis. Would you like me to try?"

"This one is willing," Mantis said, and she relaxed like she was about to go into a trance.

Wanda placed her hands by the sides of Mantis' forehead and concentrated. Wanda's brow furrowed while Mantis seemed to sink deeper into a trance.

"Danger…tomorrow night…" Mantis said.

After another minute, Natasha said, "Is that it?"

"This one is sorry," Mantis said, coming out of her trance.

"At least we have some warning," Wanda suggested.

"She said what?" Clint said from in the shower.

"That there will be some kind of danger tomorrow night," Natasha said.

"Can't you come in here and tell me this?" Clint asked.

"Oh no -- if I come in there, we'll never talk about anything important."

"How important can it be? 'Danger tomorrow night' isn't a lot to work from."

"But we should be on alert nonetheless. Maybe we should keep more than one person on monitor duty here at the mansion until after tomorrow night."

"As long as it's not us, honey."

"Why not?"

"Because we're going to Rutland tomorrow, that's why!"

"Rutland, Vermont? For the Halloween parade? Honey, we just fought to save the world from two very powerful villains. Don't you want to rest?"

"Not me! You know I live for this stuff!"

Natasha sighed. She knew what Clint would want when he was in this mood. She wouldn't be resting for some time.

Pietro had grown impatient waiting for the others and began his own video report of recent events. He found himself stopping the recorder frequently while he tried to sum up in his mind the horrors of the last few weeks and how close they had all come to the end of life as they knew it. The more he thought about it, the more he wished he was not here at the mansion at all, but off to see his girlfriend, Cynthia.

"I was denied a chance myself of directly confronting Dormammu," Pietro said, continuing his video log, "but could not be more proud that my sister lent her strength to the final effort."

"And well you should be proud, friend Quicksilver," Hercules said upon entering, "for the Prince of Power has admired the bravery of the Scarlet Witch and you on many occasions."

"Thank you," Pietro replied, switching off the recording again. "I'm glad you've come to help log a report, for I grow impatient to leave and see my Cynthia."

"Say no more, for I understand. A hero's place at quest's end is in the comforting arms of womenkind. Would that I could hasten my leave to fabled Olympus and take a sylph or two in hand. But my duty as an Avenger comes first."

Hercules sat down and tried to compose in his mind what oral history he should record about the latest saga of the Avengers. It was a Herculean task – a pun he wished he had thought of before Pietro left. His thinking was interrupted by a ping on the intercom, followed by the voice of their butler, Jarvis, announcing dinner was served. Hmm…Jarvis was an excellent cook as well as butler, and the feasts he prepared after a long mission were worthy of the gods. Hercules decided to file his report later.

Wanda, too, was eager for supper. She could not remember when she last ate. She had showered and changed into a simple red house dress. She was on her way downstairs to the dining room when she met the Vision coming up. The Vision was in a full costume, complete with cape that he always insisted on wearing. Although he had the synthetic body of an adult male, his mind was still equivalent to a five year old boy. Because he was essentially a foster child in the care of the Avengers, wearing costumes seemed normal to him. Wanda was like a mother to him, so he cried out her name when he saw her and rushed up to hug her.

"Goodness, Vision! I've missed you too!"

"Where have you been, Wanda?" Vision asked, as if his feelings were hurt. "I have not had anyone to talk to me but Jarvis."

"Oh, that couldn't have been so bad. As for where we've been, I'm sure you will hear more over dinner."

"I wish you could take me with you more. I am allowed to go out so seldom."

Wanda understood why, though she said nothing. Superheroes had always been admired since the days of Superman, but only at a distance. When superheroes wanted to interact with society, they were expected to blend in and look like everyone else. Wanda was a lucky mutant who looked just like an ordinary human, but she knew other mutants who were not so lucky. The Vision might not be a mutant, but his red skin, black eyes, and hairlessness would always make him stand out.

Jarvis was waiting in the dining room for them and watched patiently as Wanda and the Vision were joined by Hercules, the Swordsman, Mantis, and then Clint and Natasha. Only Wanda, Clint, and Natasha had switched to casual clothes.

"Are you spoiling me with hot dogs again, Jarvis?" Clint said as he smelled his favorite food on the table.


	2. Chapter 2

"Not just you, Master Hawkeye," Jarvis replied. "In your absence, the Vision has decided that hot dogs are his favorite food as well. I apologize that I could not make everyone's favorite food for your return feast, as I could not acquire a boar for roasting at such short notice, Master Hercules. However, I do have borscht for Mistress Black Widow and lamb soup for Mistress Scarlet Witch, and our main entrée will please Master Quicksilver when he arrives – pork with bacon, mushrooms, cabbage, and sour cream.

"I fear Quicksilver may not dine with us this evening, Jarvis," Hercules said as Jarvis poured him some brandy. "He was most eager to see his girlfriend."

"I see," Jarvis said, trying not to sound offended. "Oh dear. All afternoon in the kitchen, too. I do so hope he doesn't eat at McDonald's, or not at all…"

Everyone shared a secret smile at poor Jarvis' expense.

October 31, 1973. Wednesday, early morning.

Pietro was an early riser, so he was already sitting up and looking at Cynthia when she woke up. It had been the first night that they spent together like this. It had felt very right to Pietro and he had been admiring the long orange-red hair of his girlfriend until her eyes fluttered open. Then he admired those too. Cynthia seemed to appreciate his admiration and smiled. The lovers exchanged "good morning" to each other.

"How do you feel about last night?" Pietro asked her.

"I feel wonderful about it. What about you?" Cynthia asked as she sat up.

"I just want to be sure you don't think we rushed into it."

"That sounds funny coming from one of the fastest men alive," she said with a small laugh.

"I am serious," he prompted.

"So am I. I think we were ready for it. But I still wish you would have told me more last night about where you've been. What dangers you've been in. Your hands were practically shaking when you got here, you were so tense."

"I wish I could tell you. I can hardly remember it myself now. We were able to turn back time, far enough to undo most of the damage that was caused to Earth, but…now it's affecting my memory of the events too."

"Wow. I wish…I wish I could have been there by your side."

"No, it would have been far too dangerous."

"But not for the Black Widow? She's more of a normal human than I am. I am half-Inhuman, you know. At one time, bodyguard and body-double to Crystal of the Royal Family."

"I know, I know, but if it were my decision, I would not let the Black Widow go on these dangerous missions either. It's bad enough Wanda insists on this life as an Avenger."

"Pietro, I am not Wanda. You can't protect me like a kid sister."

"Again, I know. Look…Wanda is going with the Bartons to a Halloween party tonight out of state. Maybe we could try including you with the Avengers in non-emergency situations…?"

"Like a Halloween party? That sounds awfully safe to me," she joked, "but I would love to come anyway," Cynthia said, and kissed her boyfriend.

"Let us come too," the Swordsman said.

"No," Clint shot back.

"C'mon, Clint," the Swordsman said. "I'm not asking for me. Mantis asked me to ask you. And she wants me to come with her."

"Take her to the movies."

"Whatever happened to keeping your friends close and your enemies closer?"

"Not on my day off."

"You're going to want us along."

Clint and Natasha finally looked up from the newspaper they were reading together and waited for the Swordsman to explain why.

"Mantis had a dream last night about the danger she sensed tonight," he continued. "She says the danger isn't here, it's where you're headed."

Clint gave a snort of derision, but Natasha asked, "Why didn't you say that in the first place?"

"I didn't want this to just be about Avengers business. I wanted to see if Clint here could bury the hatchet."

"You're more likely to bury your sword in my back," Clint said angrily, "…but you two better come now that this is Avengers business."

"What is Avengers business?" Wanda asked as she arrived in the mansion's library. "Are we not going to Rutland now?"

"Rutland is Avengers business now," Natasha explained. "We'd best get Pietro here to join us."

"He's already coming," Wanda said. "He should be here any minute with Cynthia."

"Seems like everyone has a date but you, Wanda," the Swordsman joked. "We'll have to get Herc here to go as your date."

"I'll be just fine without a date," Wanda snapped, "but we should contact Hercules."

"I think you will find him back in Italy by now," Pietro said as he arrived with Cynthia on his arm.

Everyone was wearing their superhero uniforms as costumes to the Halloween parade, except for Cynthia who had to improvise something. She had come in a black sweater and jeans, black whiskers painted on her cheeks, and fake cat ears on a headband in her hair. Wanda and Cynthia exchanged hugs while the others talked about contacting Hercules.

"We can't wait for him," Clint said, cleaning the arquebus-like rifle that had been his weapon of choice since giving up the bow and arrow four years ago. "I'll send him a message and we can just hope he gets it and comes running."

"Mantis and I will meet everyone up on the roof in two minutes," the Swordsman said.

"Am I late?" the Vision said as he entered.

"I told him he could," Wanda spoke up quickly, "before this became an official mission."

Clint looked peeved at her. "An Avenger shouldn't break a promise…" he said through a scowl.

"He could blend in with the crowd at the parade, on this day of all days," Natasha volunteered. "Maybe he can learn something for us."

"All right, you're coming along, Viz," Clint proclaimed.

The group of eight was too large to comfortably sit in the Avengers quinjet, so it was a good thing they had not returned their borrowed plane to SHIELD yet. Soon, the plane was soaring over New York and starting the 250-mile journey to Rutland, Vermont. Clint was piloting, with Natasha at his side. Pietro and Cynthia held hands. Mantis tried holding the Swordsman's hand, but he pretended not to notice. Wanda noticed everyone either holding hands or wanting to, ignored her own wants, and smiled next to her to the Vision before staring blankly out the windshield.

They shot north across the length of New York State and made their way to Vermont in relative silence. Less than an hour later, Clint was contacting the parade coordinator, Tom Fagan, via radio to let him know they were almost there before contacting the Rutland Regional Airport to request permission to land. The airport was five miles south of the city and a Chevy pick-up was waiting to transport them into the city proper. Tom had said he was busy in town with last minute parade preparations, but that he would try to rendezvous with them before they reached the parade route. True to his word, Tom drove past them in a Buick about two miles out of town and honked his horn. The pick-up truck driver, long intimidated into silence by the presence of the assembled Avengers in the back, was eager to pull over and see his cargo unload itself.

Tom Fagan was dressed as Captain Comet, a superhero from the '50s who seemed to be semi-retired these days. His features, familiar to several of the assembled Avengers, were clearly visible through the clear bubble helmet that made Captain Comet look like a spaceman. None of the assembled heroes had ever had the pleasure of meeting the real Captain Comet, so it was almost a shame to hear Tom say, "Let me dust off my tag line, people. 'Hi, I'm your host, Tom Fagan!' We're so lucky to have you all here this year. You're just in time for Rutland's fourteenth annual Halloween parade!"

"Actually, Mr. Fagan," Wanda said, "our mission in your city is much more important than headlining a parade. We believe there is danger here."

"Right," Clint said. "We can spare a few of us to man your parade and see if it draws our foe out in the open, but the rest of us will have spread out and look for clues."

"Are people in danger?" Tom asked. "Should we cancel the parade?"

"I would think that would attract too much attention and alert whoever we're after," Natasha said. "Better to let the parade continue until we know what danger, if any, there is."

"You folks don't even know what or who you're looking for?" Tom asked. "Do you need help looking?"

"We can find it easily by ourselves," Pietro said.

"Thank you anyway, Tom," the Vision added.

"We'll look on our own too," the Swordsman suggested while putting an arm around Mantis. "I get itchy when there's trouble around, and neither Mantis nor I like the limelight."

"May we assist you in some other way, Mr. Fagan?" Mantis asked.

"Well, I had hoped – no, scratch that! You have your duty," Tom answered. "But you have to drop by my party later tonight. It's become an annual event for superheroes to ramble around my house."

"If my man so desires it, we shall appear briefly," Mantis replied.

"Great!" the man who appeared to be Tom Fagan exclaimed. Behind his smile, though, he was thinking what trusting fools these were, to have walked so wide-eyed into his deadly trap.

Downtown Rutland was full of hundreds of people in costumes and dozens of them were in superhero costumes. Some were obviously fake, like the man in a cloth version of the Iron Man armor, but some costumes were so realistic that it was hard even for the Avengers to tell if they were looking at the real thing or not. Clint, Wanda, and the Vision were in the thick of it, wading through the crowds of thousands come to see the hundreds in costumes, who stopped to gawk at how realistic they looked and speculating whether these were the actual Avengers or not. Clint was loving it. Wanda was concerned because they kept losing Cynthia in the crowd. The Vision was overwhelmed, but in a good way. They all smiled and waved at the crowd and kept attention focused on themselves.

"Could we be attracting too much attention?" Wanda asked Clint loudly enough to be heard over the surrounding din. "We're here to draw out trouble, not to draw a stampede of admirers."

"There's a lot of people in costumes here and we don't want to be mistaken for just another group of tourists," Clint said. "Besides, these people are here for entertainment and it won't hurt us to give them some while we look," he added, as he considered doing a short, improvised show of his marksmanship skill.

"We have been looking for almost an hour now," the Vision said. "What if we turn up nothing?"

"Someone will find something," Clint said. "Never loose faith in the Avengers!"


	3. Chapter 3

Pietro was about ready to give up. He had raced all over this silly little town and had seen no sign of any wrongdoing yet. He would much rather be enjoying himself with Cynthia, who had to enjoy the Halloween festivities all by herself this last hour while he was busy. It was always the same. "Pietro," they would say, "reconnoiter the area." Or "Pietro, go on ahead and take a look around." There were times when he felt more like an errand boy than an Avenger. After having searched every public building in town at 150 MPH, Pietro picked up speed for searching the woods outside the city. He was cruising at 200 MPH through a grove of aspen trees when he spotted Tom Fagan, still in his costume.

"Quicksilver, wait!" Tom called out as Pietro sped past. Pietro spun around and raced back to Tom's side. But before he could reach Tom, Tom had produced a pistol-like weapon in his hand and fired it. Pietro swerved to dodge, but found one-half of his body was covered in ice. The ice coating unbalanced him and sent him tumbling to the ground, but Pietro kept up his momentum to tumble farther from his attacker. The rolling and tumbling was bruising, but successful at breaking large chunks of ice from Pietro's costume. Pietro rose to his feet, but found they had already been frozen in a new block of ice.

"Captain Cold's ice gun," Tom Fagan said in a voice that no longer sounded like Tom, but still sounded familiar. "I collected it just recently. Even the Flash can be caught in its ice ray, and you're not as fast as he is, are you?"

Pietro, freezing cold and feeling sleepy, wished he was.

Fifteen minutes later, Natasha was alone in an office in Rutland City Hall, looking over paperwork for recent construction projects. Then she looked up, confident that she had just heard Tom Fagan's voice in the hallway outside. It was the middle of the week and even in Rutland local government did not shut down for Halloween. No doubt he was here on business, but there was also the possibility that he had followed her here. Chiefly for that last reason, she decided to follow the sound of his voice.

Natasha opened the office door as quietly as she could and peered into the corridor. She could hear the clickety-clack of typewriters coming from a nearby office and, from the far end of the corridor where it opened into a stairwell, footsteps moving away from her. She crept down the corridor and, looking down into the stairwell, saw Tom Fagan in his helmeted Captain Comet costume looking back up at her.

"Well, hello again, Black Widow!" Tom said from the lower landing. "What are you doing here?"

"Checking local construction records to see if I could find anything suspicious being built or built recently in or around Rutland, but I didn't find anything," Natasha said as she descended down to his level. "But what are you doing here?"

"I think I may have found a clue and was looking to see if any Avengers had come here," Tom said jovially. "I'm glad I was right!" He held up what appeared to be a trick squirting flower.

"Where did--?" Natasha started to ask, but then Tom squirted a cloud of something in her face from it. She fell backwards on the stairs.

"Joker venom," the man who appeared to be Tom said, "from the Joker's own flower I collected. Diluted, so as not to kill, or at least not quickly."

Natasha appeared to be down for the count, but only for a moment before she sat up and fired one of her wrist-mounted electroshock weapons at him. It was now clear she was holding her breath.

"Clever girl," the man who looked like Tom Fagan, but no longer sounded much like him, said, "but you'll find this costume is more than just for decoration. I'm environmentally sealed and protected from—oof!" he cried out as Natasha kicked him in the stomach and knocked him over.

Natasha leapt over the stairwell and landed on the stairs below the Tom imposter in order to stay clear of where he had sprayed that gas. She felt the need to giggle and suppressed it. She must have caught some of that gas after all, she realized with some alarm. Now the Tom imposter had a gun-like weapon pointed at her. He never would have got the drop on her with a gun had she not been distracted by this poison in her lungs, she thought. Before he could fire, she leaped and kicked the gun out of her hand, but he reacted nearly as fast by pushing her backwards while she was in mid-air and off-balance. She could feel muscles tightening all over her body and it made her land on the stairs wrong. She tumbled down the stairs without gaining control of her fall. She was still conscious when she hit the bottom, hard. Because of the venom, the pain made her laugh. She was still laughing when the Tom imposter came towards her.

Clint thought it was no laughing matter that neither Pietro nor his wife had reported in for the last hour. He regretted deeply that he had stopped having everyone wear the headphone communicators that Peter used to make them wear when he was chairman of the team. Not for the first time, he wished they had never lost Spider-Man as an Avenger. "Okay, we're getting nowhere remaining conspicuous," he said to the other Avengers who had just finished riding on a float through the parade route with him. "We're going to have to split up in teams of two. Viz, you're with me. Wanda, keep Cynthia safe. Viz and I will take the east side of town and you can search the west. If anyone sees Swordsman and Mantis again, tell them our new plan. And nobody splits up any smaller than pairs. I don't think we're safe wandering alone anymore."

Wanda and Cynthia had wandered only a few blocks, both intensely silent in their shared concern for Pietro. A half-block ahead of them was some sort of commotion. Both women envisioned Pietro lying in the street, injured or worse, and quickened their pace. What they saw was Hercules standing in the midst of a crowd, a woman dressed as the Invisible Girl and another woman dressed as Elastic Girl perched on each shoulder. He seemed to be adoring the attention, as a Roman demigod would be expected to do. Wanda and Cynthia waded through the crowd to reach him, with Wanda pushing ahead and Cynthia falling behind.

"Hercules!" Wanda shouted when she was close enough. "When did you get here?"

Hercules looked glad to see Wanda and gently lifted the two women off of his shoulders. "Wanda!" he exclaimed. "I am glad to have found a fellow Avenger! Did you not summon me? My plane received word of an Avengers priority request for re-routing to the Burlington International Airport. Fearing a car would be too slow, I sprinted here and have just recently arrived."

While Hercules and Wanda talked, Cynthia overheard a man in the crowd nearby her say, "That Scarlet Witch costume looks as realistic as the Black Widow I saw earlier."

Cynthia immediately grabbed the man's arm and shouted, "Hey, guys! Over here!" By the time Hercules and Wanda had pushed back to where Cynthia was standing, she had already begun to question the man. "This is Harry Ryan, a law clerk," Cynthia told them, "and he may have seen the Black Widow!"

Harry Ryan pushed up his glasses and sucked in his gut before speaking to the Avengers who were all sizing him up. He gulped one last time and mustered his best speaking voice. "I was telling this young lady here that the Black Widow was in City Hall over an hour ago. She took a bad fall, Tom said, and he helped her get to a doctor to check her out. It couldn't have been too bad, though, because she was laughing about it when they left."

"That doesn't sound like the Black Widow…" Wanda said suspiciously. "What doctor?"

Mr. Ryan tried to keep his cool as he hastily explained he had not asked and Tom had not said.

Hercules gave Ryan a hard stare, but at the end of it said, "I think this man speaks the truth, as he knows it. Regardless, if there is any chance that this is our Black Widow of which he speaks, we should hasten to find her."

"All right," Wanda said. "Let's find a doctor's office. We can try finding a phone book in one of these open restaurants and make a list of all of them to contact." As Hercules followed Wanda into a restaurant, Cynthia dallied long enough to thank Mr. Ryan. And Mr. Ryan wondered if anyone would believe him about whom he just talked to.

As Wanda, Hercules, and Cynthia went into the restaurant, they were unaware that the Swordsman and Mantis were just a block south of them, unnoticed because of the hundreds of locals and tourists standing between them. The Swordsman and Mantis had been looking for clues, like everyone else, but the Swordsman was not much of a detective and Mantis was distracted by the sense of impending evil that felt like a headache to her. Mantis had never been anywhere so crowded in all her life, so that was distracting her too. Mantis' costume was skimpier than the average Halloween costume, which attracted plenty of stares. Some wondered why the cold was not bothering her. Others just admired.

"…I don't know much about tracking down villains," the Swordsman was confessing to Mantis, "but I do know about setting traps for heroes. And this invitation to Rutland Clint got smacks of a trap to me."

"Agreed," Mantis said. "Perhaps we should find out what Tom Fagan was concealing?"

"What do you mean, concealing?" the Swordsman asked.

"This one sensed that Tom Fagan was hiding something from us when we first met him. Besides his identity behind his costume, this one means."

"Why didn't you say so sooner?"

"Sorry, this one just assumed everyone could tell," Mantis explained matter-of-factly.

The Swordsman sighed. Mantis was one weird lady. And if that did not turn him on so much, he probably would not be here now.

"Was that not Tom Fagan's car right over there?" Mantis asked.

The Swordsman looked and guessed she was right again. Right there on the curb was parked a Buick that looked just like Tom's. It was parked right in front of a police car in an area blocked off from traffic, so surely only someone like Tom would have been allowed to park there. "Looks like you're right again!" he responded. "Come on!" No one stopped them from approaching the vehicle. It appeared to be a perfectly ordinary car, with candy bar wrappers and pamphlets for the Halloween parade in the front seat. The Swordsman looked around, particularly at the police car, to see if anyone was watching. He could probably break the window with his fist to get in, or maybe he could tap it with the hilt of his scabbard. But…what was that? "Do you hear something?" he asked Mantis. There was a banging sound coming from inside the car that he could barely hear over the noise of the nearby crowds.

"Yes, it is coming from the trunk," she said.

"Great," he said, as he noticed a police officer returning to his parked car right behind them. "Mantis, go distract that cop," he said, pointing with a nod of his head, "and keep him facing away from here."

"How would you like this one to do that?"

"I don't know. Go ask him for directions to the highway."

So Mantis walked, or rather sashayed up in front of the police officer, the short skirt of her costume swaying off her hips, and asked in her sweetest voice, "Pardon me, Officer, but can you give me directions to the highway?"

The Swordsman was only half-surprised that it worked so well. He unsheathed a knife he wore at his side. He wiggled the tip in the keyhole of the trunk until he picked the lock and popped the trunk. He was also only half-surprised when he saw Tom Fagan lying in the back. The Swordsman re-sheathed his knife and pulled duct tape off of Tom's mouth.

"It's about time!" Tom shouted crossly. "I've been making as much noise as I could for I don't know how long!"

"We need to call in the guard," the Swordsman told Mantis. "Avengers assemble!" he shouted the battle cry as loudly as he could. Then he jumped up on top of Tom's car and shouted it again.

"What's going on here?" the police officer, no longer distracted by Mantis, said. "Holy – Tom! What are you doing in your trunk?"

"This one would like to know too."

"It looks like we've found the danger you predicted!" the Swordsman said as he jumped down beside Mantis.

As the policeman helped untie Tom, Mantis asked, "It was not you who welcomed us to Rutland earlier, was it, Tom Fagan?"

"Not on your life! I was on my way to do it when this guy who looked just like me in a spaceman-type costume fired some sort of ray at my car and then the car skidded to a halt. I got out and saw the front tire was buried in ice, but then the guy who did it got up behind me and – ka-wham! My head goes into crisis mode! Ow!"

The Swordsman had grabbed Tom by the hair and lifted some to check the back of his scalp. "His story checks out," he said nonchalantly. "He's got a nasty bruise."

"I guess I should have expected something like this after it became the 'in' thing for superheroes to take a break here each Halloween," Tom said. "In unfamiliar country, surrounded by people in costumes, you make perfect candidates for a trap. It was only a matter of time until a super-villain caught on. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, tell it to Hawkeye," the Swordsman said. "I knew it was a trap, but he never listens to me."

"This one thinks you have done nothing wrong. Your festivities have provided pleasure for thousands of adults and children. It is those who would pervert that pleasure for evil who should be sorry."

"And they'll answer for it too," the Swordsman added, "as soon as we figure out where whoever did this has gone!"


	4. Chapter 4

Clint wanted nothing better than to know where his wife had gone. Just as the Swordsman had been yelling "Avengers assemble!" Clint was pulling down a fire escape so he and the Vision could use the higher vantage point of the rooftops to look for her.

"I will miss being at street level," the Vision said. "I was enjoying how everyone looked at me with admiration."

"You do have a mighty nice costume," Clint commented while his mind was mostly on watching the street. "Just keep an eye out for Natasha, okay? There can't be too many people with long red hair and skin-tight black outfits down there."

"Would it not make more sense to watch for Quicksilver?" the Vision asked. "Surely someone running at super-fast speed through the crowd would stand out even more."

"Yeah, sure. Watch for both of them."

"That might no longer be necessary, Hawkeye," the Vision said, and he roused Clint's attention in time to see Tom Fagan, still in his Captain Comet costume, walking down the street and heading in the direction they had come from.

Clint quickly grabbed the grappling hook and reel of line from the bottom of his cartridge pouch, opened the retractable hook, attached the reel to his arquebus barrel, attached the hook to the roof edge, and rappelled down to the street. The Vision grabbed the line and followed suite.

Once back on the ground, Clint ran up to Tom and said, "Have you heard anything from our missing Avengers?"

"Relax, Hawkeye," Tom said. "I was coming to look for you so I could take you to the Black Widow. She's—"

"What happened to her?"

"She's fine. Now. She fell and was hurt a little bit, though. She's at Dr. Herman's office, not far from here. Come on, I'll show you the way."

"You heard the man," Clint said as the Vision caught up.

"We'll make faster time if we head through here," Tom said, pointing out an alley up ahead. "Otherwise, we have to go around the whole block."

"Fine, fine," Clint said, impatient. But then he stopped when he saw a grandfather clock standing rather incongruously in the alleyway.

"Tom…?" Clint asked, pointing to the clock.

"Strange, I don't remember that being there before," Tom said.

"Yeah, weird thing to throw out in an alley," Clint said. His instincts said this was a trap. Clint and the Vision moved into the alley, cautiously eyeing the clock as they went around it. They were coming around the other side when the clock chimed – and then seemed to explode. The sides of the clock fell away and waves of adhesive paste burst out and drenched the two heroes. The Vision was taken off-guard and knocked over by the blast. Clint went straight to his belt pouch of trick cartridges, only to find it gummed up with glue already. Looking back, he saw the man who looked like Tom had held back outside the radius of the glue burst. He took aim with his arquebus, but found the trigger stuck in place with glue. He tried to run over there and give that imposter a good beating, but he tripped as his feet became stuck fast and fell down in more glue.

"The clock is something I collected from the Clock King," the Tom imposter said in a different voice, but one still familiar to Clint. "I thought it would be cleverer to stock the time bomb-clock with glue arrows from the Rainbow Archer, but I couldn't find enough of them, so I hate to cheat and use this supply that I liberated from the Trapster."

"Collector," Clint said through a half-glued shut mouth.

"The same," the Collector said, taking off his clear bubble helmet. His features no longer looked like Tom Fagan at all, but the wrinkled old man with white hair and white eyes that Clint remembered fighting twice in the past. "The holographic projector in that helmet has been a useful tool for deceiving you all, but it becomes rather stuffy in there. I simply must tell you of my pleasure! I did not expect to capture the Avengers until phase two of my plan. I knew some superhero or another would come to Rutland, and I would use him as a lure to capture others. I never dreamed the entire Avengers would play so easily into my hands!"

"You haven't beaten us yet!" Clint exclaimed as he struggled in vain to free himself. "There's still a lot of Avengers left to deal with you."

"Less than you might think. You might give me some credit for anticipating you would split up. I really am endowed with a quite formidable brain. And that has made it easy to move about town, setting different traps into place for each of your mini-teams. But I have dawdled here with you long enough. Now a simple dose of chloroform, a quick trip to your new home after I spray some solvent, and then, well, I suppose I should round up the Swordsman and Mantis next, but I simply can't wait to add Hercules to my collection. You see, I am more than ready for him too." And the Collector laughed as he moved toward the silent Vision to carry out the first of his stated intentions. But his laughter stopped short when the Vision pulled himself loose from the ground.

The Vision had been concentrating all this time on a power he had inherited from the alien Vision of whom he was a synthetic version, the power to phase extra-dimensionally. Once half-immaterial, the Vision had found much less adhesive sticking to him. "You may be less ready for us than you think," the Vision observed.

"Get out of here, Viz!" Hawkeye called out, though still muffled. "Don't try to tackle him alone! Get help!"

"Did you hear that?" Hercules asked Wanda and Cynthia.

"What did you think you heard?" Wanda asked.

"I thought I heard an Avenger call for help, but now I hear nothing. Perhaps I am just too eager for combat and only thought I heard it."

The doctor had been out for the day at the first office the three visited, but the receptionist was in and immediately sympathetic to their cause. The receptionist, a woman named Shirley, volunteered to call all the other physicians in the area, but not one office that she called admitted to having treated Natasha. The three had left, as perplexed as ever as to Natasha's whereabouts, but had taken another delay in their search while Hercules drew a crowd and signed autographs.

"And here I thought all you could think about was hero worship," Wanda said sharply.

"It is true that I miss the days when gods were truly worshipped, but do you not think, well…?"

"Go on, say it," Wanda said as they walked on. "You're thinking I'm overreacting – and you're right. It's just that…" but Wanda was embarrassed to speak more in front of the crowd and walked on. Cynthia and Hercules hastened to keep up with her and they all turned down a quieter side street. "Well," Wanda continued, "you may be used to people thinking of you as 'non-human,' but I'm not. Some love us as 'heroes', but none of them see us as real beings with real feelings!"

"I may not be human," Hercules said, "but I was once and feel I still understand them well."

"I'm with Hercules," Cynthia said. "Not one of us is really human and probably none of us would be considered normal even if we were."

"I believe you are troubled by something other than our missing companions," Hercules added.

"I am, in a way," Wanda said, "but even though I should be worried about Pietro and Natasha, it's Dane, our Black Knight, that I've been thinking about."

"Do not worry then. The Defenders promised they would lift the curse that afflicts him. Do you fear they will not keep their word…?"

"No, not that. I just wonder if I should have gone too," Wanda said, rubbing her arm nervously and looking anywhere than at Hercules.

Hercules put his hand gently to her back and led her down a less crowded side street. "You chose not to go, as did the rest of us for our own reasons," he prodded. "For my part, I felt the Defenders had earned the right to take up that quest and it would have been unseemly to rob them of it. I have not changed my mind since. What makes you change yours?"

"It's silly, I suppose," Wanda said, laughing nervously now. "I…I suppose it's because I had feelings for Dane and then, when he disappeared, I thought he didn't feel the same and didn't go after him. And now the Defenders tell us he had been turned into a statue over a year ago. Now I'm afraid, when I do see him again, that I don't know if he'll be glad to see me or angry that I wasn't there to help him sooner."

"Love makes cowards of us all sometimes," Hercules said, softer than he was accustomed to speaking. "That is one reason why the Prince of Power has resisted falling in love for centuries. But it is unseemly for an Avenger, and especially one as brave as you, to turn your back when you feel another Avenger needs you."

Wanda looked to both Hercules and Cynthia now with eyes that were tearing up. "You think I should have gone?"

"Do not forget that more than one Avenger needs you," Hercules gently admonished her. "Let us finish this quest first, and then see what aid you can be to the Defenders on theirs."

"You're right. Thank you, Hercules. I will concentrate on our 'quest' now."

"And I thought I had relationship problems, waiting for your brother to come home from Avengers missions," Cynthia said with earnest sympathy that made Wanda smile.

"Hey, there you people are!" Tom Fagan said. Tom was approaching them, still in his costume. Some out-of-town tourists were also heading their way, snapping pictures with cameras.

"Tom Fagan," Hercules said with a serious look, "I was just about to mention you."

"Better to be talked about than not talked about, right?" Tom paraphrased. "Found anything yet?"

"Not a thing. Or any one," Wanda said.

"Our mysteries multiply," Hercules said.

"That's awful," Tom said, but still sounded cheerful. "Hey, I bet those people are going to want a picture of you, Hercules. Would you put on this 'Welcome to Rutland' T-shirt for their pictures?" and Tom held up an old, brown shirt he had crumpled up between his hands.

"I do not think—" Hercules began to say, but just then the man who looked like Tom Fagan thrust the shirt against Hercules' mostly-bare chest and Hercules winced and groaned in pain.

"Hercules, what's wrong?" Wanda asked, astonished that the touch of a shirt was making Hercules double over in pain and collapse at her feet.

"This is no T-shirt, is it, Hercules?" the man who looked like Tom asked with a voice that Wanda now recognized as someone else. "This is one of the oldest items from Earth in my collection – the legendary Shirt of Nessus that, I believe, once killed you!"

"Monster!" Wanda cried out.

"That's hardly the name you know me by, is it, my dear?" the man who looked like Tom Fagan asked with an evil grin as he reached out to grab Wanda.

Before he could reach Wanda, Cynthia had his other arm in a hold behind his back, thrust one leg between his, and pivoted to throw his weight to the left and trip him over her leg. The maneuver worked, and the man who looked like Tom Fagan in a Captain Comet costume stumbled into a display of Halloween souvenirs outside the nearby store.

"Cynthia, run!" Wanda cried out. "You don't know how dangerous he is!"


	5. Chapter 5

"How right she is," the disguised Collector said, as he held out the Shirt of Nessus. "Do not think that the legendary poison held in these fibers will affect Hercules alone. Though weakened by the passage of two millennia, its touch is still lethal enough to kill mortals like you."

Cynthia wisely backed away as the Collector advanced on her, but she moved away from both him and Wanda to split up his targets. Wanda, for her part, was distracted by the approach of more pedestrians coming their way. As she hollered for them to stay away, the Collector made a successful lunge for her and placed his empty hand over her face. The chloroform emitted from his glove made her swoon. The Collector gingerly caught her in the crook of his other arm, being careful to keep the Shirt of Nessus from touching her.

"Now, to address the problem of you," the Collector said to Cynthia, "and try to determine if you are a super-argh!" he cried out, as Hercules unexpectedly lunged forward and crushed the Collector's leg in his powerful grip.

"Deadly as the Shirt of Nessus may be, my experience with it may have afforded me some little immunity," Hercules mused out loud, though still sounding as if he were in pain.

"It doesn't matter," the Collector said as he pressed three areas of his chest in sequence through his costume, "so long as you keep your hold on me a moment longer…"

Hercules did and, in a wink, the Collector, Hercules, and Wanda in his arms all disappeared.

"How hard can it be to find an Avenger around here?" the Swordsman asked with sarcastic frustration. "When I was a criminal, I couldn't cross the street without running into an Avenger!"

"Here is one!" Mantis said, pointing through a store window.

The Vision was standing still, like a mannequin, inside a store window. As Mantis and the Swordsman noticed him, the Vision stepped through the glass as if it was not there. "I am glad you found me," the Vision said. "Hawkeye was captured!" Then the Vision related his story, including his close-call escape and what he knew of the Collector.

"I remember him!" the Swordsman said. "He was recruiting supervillains to come work for him about seven or eight years ago, but he was so creepy that only the Beetle agreed to work for him. All he's interested in is collecting superheroes."

"Then he may be reaping a good harvest today, if we do not stop him," Mantis said.

"I will help," the Vision volunteered.

"If he's picked off enough of the others, we'll need you," the Swordsman said.

Ever since the Vision stepped through the glass, sightseers had realized these were real superheroes and flocked around them. The Swordsman was getting annoyed with the number of people constantly snapping pictures of them and pressing in closer with their camera, so much so that he drew his sword and began shooing people away with it, but people thought it was just for show and they pressed in tighter for a look. Then the Vision lifted up his cape, shook his face, and raced towards the crowd shouting, "Boo!" repeatedly. People began to back off at once. Once they had a good sized circle of personal space re-established, the Vision walked back to the others and said, "Sometimes it's helpful to look so different from others."

"Nice work, Vision. And don't worry. We'll find the others somehow," the Swordsman said to rally the others' spirits, as well as his own. "Mantis, can you sense any more specifically where our danger is coming from?"

"No," Mantis answered. "This one has been trying, but can only tell that the danger is near. Almost surely here in the city with us."

"And somewhere large and private enough to house a lot of prisoners," the Swordsman considered out loud.

"There are thousands of buildings that fit that description within Rutland," the Vision said.

"Maybe we are over-analyzing," Mantis said. "Our foe has been masquerading as Tom Fagan this whole time, so he would be limited to places Tom Fagan would be allowed to come and go."

"Which would be where?" the Swordsman asked.

"This one does not know, but we could have asked him."

The Swordsman slapped his head and cursed. "We never should have left him with that policeman! Now we have to find him all over again!"

"Help!" Tom Fagan cried out as loudly as he could, which was not very loud with Cynthia choking him.

"What have you done with the others?" Cynthia asked again.

"Let go of him, ma'am!" the police officer commanded, taking aim with his pistol as the stand-off continued.

"I didn't do anything to anyone!" Tom protested. "I'm the real Tom Fagan, not the imposter!"

Cynthia loosened her grip.

"It's true, ma'am," the policeman said. "The Swordsman and this lady dressed for a Hawaiian luau found him in his own car trunk."

Tom summarized the rest of the story, as he knew it, for Cynthia as she let go of him.

"I'm sorry," Cynthia said. "I'm just on edge because I came with the Avengers, but the other Avengers are being kidnapped by your impersonator!"

"We can't let anything happen to the Avengers," Tom said. "Come on," he said to Cynthia. "We can go to my house and make some calls that might help."

"I can't let her go, Tom," the officer said. "She just attacked you."

"It's okay, Dan," Tom said. "I won't press charges. She was just distraught because her friends are under attack. Wouldn't you be?"

Officer Dan reluctantly agreed, allowing Tom and Cynthia to backtrack to Tom's car. As they drove to Tom's house, they passed a float left over from the earlier parade parked on the side of the street. They paid no attention to it, naturally, but that was how they happened to miss the Vision and Mantis standing on the other side of the float.

The Swordsman came out of the restaurant with a page ripped out of the phonebook. "Here's Fagan's address," he said. "Let's go find the man."

The man they sought was soon in his driveway. Tom's yard was festooned with ghosts hanging from trees, fake skeletons lying in fake graves, and the like.

"Nice yard display," Cynthia said as Tom quickly checked his mailbox.

"Yeah…wait until I get the dry ice out here that's inside…" he said absent-mindedly as he looked through his mail. Tom sat the mail down inside the door after letting them in.

"Did you get anything that might help us?" Cynthia said, curious about the look Tom had made when he looked through the mail.

"No, I'm afraid not," Tom said as he went through his address book by the kitchen phone. "I'm just having this issue with the electric company. They keep charging me for electricity they say I'm using at the old house, but I haven't been there in six months."

Cynthia thought about that as Tom started calling people. "So…" she said, joining Tom in his kitchen, "you've moved in the last year?"

"That's right," Tom said, not really paying attention. "All the phone books around here still have my old address in them. Need to see that gets changed too."

"But this is the address you put on the invitation you sent to the Avengers?" Cynthia asked, pressing her line of thought on him.

Tom took the phone away from his ear. "I didn't send an invitation," Tom said. "I just hoped superheroes would show up on their own now that the word has spread through their community. I didn't know the Avengers were coming until I got the call from Hawkeye that you were on your way."

"Tom!" Cynthia said. "He's at your old house! It's a trap for the rest of the Avengers!"

The Swordsman, Mantis, and the Vision arrived via taxi cab at an old house on the outskirts of Rutland. The house looked almost deserted, but there was a light on upstairs.

"There is no car here," the Vision observed. "Are we sure Tom Fagan is home?"

"We can't be sure of anything right now," the Swordsman said. "I'm just hoping we find some answers inside."

All three of them walked up to the front door, or more like floating in the Vision's case, as he was wary of another trap and had phased his body in advance. The Swordsman was in the lead and almost knocked on the door, but thought better of it and kicked the front door in instead. It flew open with a loud bang against the wall behind it. The foyer was empty. Stairs led up to a second floor. The foyer was open to the living room and a hallway running to the dining room. There were drapes over all the windows that let in some light, but there was very little furnishing inside.

"Looks empty," the Swordsman said quietly, "but we should check it out." He stepped into the foyer and the floor promptly fell away. The Swordsman started to tumble, but soon took control, came out of his roll, and ran down the floor that was now a ramp into the basement. It was a finished basement, gutted of interior walls, and free of furnishings except for bearskin rugs hanging on the walls. And a row of occupants.

"Ha ha ha ha!" the Collector laughed. "Like butterflies coming to the net!" Out of his Captain Comet costume, the Collector stood before a wall where Hercules, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch stood, literally pinned to the wall with glowing pins. The captured Avengers seemed to be asleep, or worse, with their heads sagging.

The Swordsman came out of his tumble a half room away from the Collector, but closed the gap swiftly with his sword flashing. "You're through, Collector!" he cried.

"Stop!" the Collector commanded, holding up a small box with a button on it. "I press this and the stasis pins holding your comrades will overload and the energy surge will kill them all!"

The Swordsman did stop. "What do you want?" he asked.

"Why, you, of course!" the Collector said with another laugh.

The Vision floated down into the basement and landed next to the Swordsman, assuming a similar defensive stance.

"I have made several additions to this dwelling since I determined I would need it," the Collector continued. "After all, I need a complete set of Avengers to highlight my fabulous collection – and since I have failed to acquire you twice before, thorough preparation was mandatory!" Then the Collector simply made a clicking sound with his tongue and four bearskin rugs mounted on the basement walls lifted themselves up and stepped down off the walls. As they turned around, they could be seen to have flat, mechanical skeletons attached to their underbellies. "My 'additions' will now relieve you of that sword, Swordsman!" the Collector said.

"Not likely," the Swordsman said as he electrified his sword blade with a press of a button. He dodged a bear claw and stabbed his attacker right through its mechanical spine. The bear convulsed before dropping to the floor, but before the Swordsman could turn to face his other foes, a bearskin wrapped around him from behind and pinned his arms.

The Vision, still half-immaterial, flowed through the grip of the remaining bear constructs like water, but found himself facing the same dilemma that had stopped the Swordsman a moment ago. The Collector held the remote for the stasis pins in one hand and a spare stasis pin in his other gauntleted hand.

"The stasis pin will hold even you, synthezoid," the Collector told the Vision. "Submit, or I will keep a wall full of dead Avengers on display for the rest of my centuries."

"You might have," Mantis said as she applied a paralyzing nerve pinch to the Collector from behind, "had this one not taken the time to find the stairs."

As the Collector toppled, the remote control fell from his hand and clattered to the floor. No sooner was the Collector down then he was reaching for the remote. Mantis flipped over his back and kicked the remote from his reach. "Foolish girl," the Collector said. "Have the Avengers not told you my collection extends beyond this world? Why would you think, then, that I am human and vulnerable to your nerve pinch?"

Mantis had the remote in hand, but the Collector and one of the bearskin constructs were cornering her. She looked around for allies. The Swordsman was furthest away and still struggling to free himself from a bearhug. The Vision was still standing where he had been, only with an almost-invisible laser beam emanating from the jewel on his forehead and aimed at Hercules.

The Collector caught sight of what Mantis saw too late. "No!" he cried, as he realized that the Vision's laser had destroyed the stasis pins holding Hercules.


	6. Chapter 6

Hercules let out a terrible roar as he found himself finally able to move again. "Much I have heard I would now avenge, Collector!" he shouted. He brushed the bear construct out of his way and sent it hurtling across the room. It hit the far wall and its mechanical parts broke into pieces. Even Mantis shrank back, though it was not Hercules himself, but from an overwhelming sense of imminent evil.

"Hercules, stop!" Mantis cried out. "The evil this one sensed! It is almost here!"

"Wrong, child!" the Collector said. "It is here right now!" he said, as he produced what looked like an egg-shaped stone from a pocket. He thrust the stasis pin in his other hand right into the stone and the whole room was flooded with a bright light and seared with uncomfortable heat. Even Hercules took a step back when he found, standing between him and the Collector, was a being half-man, half-bat, and wreathed in flame. "You have provoked this, Avengers!" the Collector said after the bat-monster roared something in some unknown tongue. "I might never have freed the rarest prize in my collection – Camazotz, the Aztec Bat God -- if you had cooperated!"

Camazotz roared again, spread his wings, and from out of the shadowy folds of those leathery wings sprang dozens of flame-wreathed bats. Mantis leaped and twisted out of the way as the swarm of fiery bats spread out across the room. A single brush with them might have been disastrous, but Mantis danced around them as if they were motionless. The Swordsman had gained enough leverage inside his imprisoning bear rug to tip it over onto a passing fire-bat and crush it to the floor. The bearskin caught fire, but the Swordsman rolled back and forth until the flames were smothered, but not before his prison was destroyed.

"What sport!" Hercules cried, as he threw Camzotz to the floor so hard that the floor and ceiling cracked and the support beams along the basement ceiling shifted. The mystic flame surrounding Camzotz singed Hercules, but any pain Hercules felt only made him wish to fight all the more. The disoriented bat-god was taking blows to the head and wings before it could get up.

When the Swordsman stood up, he found himself warding off four more fire-bats with his sword and almost wished he was under cover again. The remaining bearskin constructs lacked the agility to dodge the fire-bats and were all aflame already. They teetered and fell down all around the room. The Swordsman could see the Collector making his way to the exit and the Vision was still standing still. "Mantis, try to stop the Collector! Vision, we need more help!"

"More help is coming!" the Vision called out over the screech of the bats.

Mantis could not harm the fire-bats, but she could make them chase her. She put herself and three fire-bats between the Collector and the exit, but the Collector had drawn Captain Cold's ice gun by now and sheathed Mantis and her pursuers in ice. The ice blocked the exit now too, but only for a moment until a thunderous exchange of punches between Hercules and Camzotz shattered the ice, every window in the house, and shook the house to its foundations.

"Beward, my friends!" Hercules called out as he grappled with his foe. "Though weakened from his captivity, the strength of Camzotz returns quickly. Our struggle will soon endanger the whole community!" Hercules was clearly putting all he had into checking Camzotz's every move, but he could only delay so long before more damage would be done.

The Collector calmly stepped over Mantis and out of the room just as pieces of the ceiling began to fall, strike fire-bats, and hit the floor like fiery meteors. At that moment, the Vision's last freed Pietro. Pietro saw his comrades beset by the flaming bats and did not hesitate more than a second before he launched himself around the room, striking every bat out of the air with his gloved fists or bowling them over with the wind gusts in his wake. Treated to resist heat from friction, Pietro's costume kept him from burning as he landed the dozens of punches that felled every bat in the room in less than a minute. Then he turned his attention to Camzotz, but the bat-god was too terrible, too awesome to approach. Pietro felt every inch a mortal in the presence of immortals and shrank back.

The Vision was struggling to burn away the stasis pins from Wanda, flinching only when the struggle between Hercules and Camzotz moved too close for comfort. It had been horribly scary ever since the Collector had ambushed Hawkeye and him, but the Vision checked his fear by remembering what Ultron had told him. "You're only a robot; you're only a robot," the Vision repeated in his brain. It was not true, but it held back the emotion that slipped into his voice as he said, "I am sorry, Wanda, but my solar battery is too low on power and my laser is weakening."

"I've got it," the Swordsman said as he set his sword to vibra-blade mode. With a flurry of swings he sliced in half the pins holding Wanda and then Clint to the wall. "You owe me again, pal," he said as he helped Clint to his feet.

Then Hercules threw Camzotz, or perhaps vice versa – but they both went careening into the wall of the basement – three feet through the wall into the surrounding earth. It was the last straw for the house, which simply gave up trying to withstand all this and began falling down. Pietro reacted before anyone else could, lifting people in his arms and running up the side of the trap door to the foyer with them, one at a time, but almost too fast to see.

The Collector was next door, revving the engine of the neighbor's car he had just hot-wired. It amused him that he could escape the Avengers in so primitive a fashion, where all his advanced technology had failed to catch them all. Losing both them and Camzotz, the only god in his collection, was a difficult loss, but he reminded himself he had centuries to collect them all again.

Tom Fagan's Buick pulled up to his old house with a screech just as the old house was coming down and the Collector was pulling out of the neighbor's driveway in their Chevy Nova. Cynthia jumped out and ran to the Collector's car, shouting, "Wait! Do you know if anyone was in there?" She did not recognize the Collector out of his Captain Comet disguise and assumed this was someone else dressed for Halloween.

Thanks to Pietro, the Avengers emerged from the front door just as the front door collapsed behind them. The Collector cursed and exited the car. He touched a spot on his chest.

Cynthia recognized the movement as one the Collector had done earlier while still in disguise and instinctively pieced things together. "Pietro!" she cried, "don't let him touch his chest again! He'll teleport somehow!"

The Collector did manage to touch the second spot before Pietro reached him, but Pietro was holding his arm before the Collector could touch the third spot in the sequence that activated his emergency teleporter. The Collector was strong, though -- surprisingly strong as Pietro found out, and he could only slow the Collector's hand as it reached for its destination. "Curse you, Quicksilver," the Collector said under his breath as they struggled.

And then a shot rang out. Clint was thankful to have found his trusty arquebus – a hi-tech rifle made to look like an antique arquebus, and only he and a handful of archers in the world would have attempted that shot with a mutant speedster in the way. Pietro stepped back to see the Collector poking himself ineffectually. Finally, in a fit of rage, he tore his own shirt to reveal the now-broken mechanical apparatus the Collector wore around his chest and stomach. Only a flashing light showed that the apparatus was functioning at all.

"You think you've won, I suppose," the Collector said, "but Camzotz is still loose. You can take me prisoner, or try to prevent all of Rutland from being destroyed!"

Hercules and Camzotz were still battling, but their battle remained underground. They plowed back and forth through the yard like some gigantic, burrowing gopher. The Avengers braced themselves as the earth was kicked up in a path leading straight towards them. A water pipe must have been hit as a fountain of steam spewed up into the air. Then everything went quiet. The Avengers watched the steam cloud for some sign of either combatant. Two seconds passed very slowly. Then Hercules and Camzotz – no longer aflame and looking more jovial – emerged onto the wrecked driveway.

"Good news, Avengers!" Hercules said. "Camzotz is impressed enough with my fighting prowess that he has agreed to a truce! I have told him some of how mortals celebrate the autumnal equinox in these times and he would like to observe!"

"Trick…or treat?" Camzotz asked in broken English.

The neighbors began to emerge from their homes to investigate the horrible events at the old Fagan house. They gathered in crowds, their children still dressed for trick-or-treating. The Avengers looked around.

"Anyone here throwing a Halloween party?" Clint asked.

If ever there was a good excuse for a Halloween party, this was it. The neighbors improvised a neighborhood bash right there on the spot that outshone even what Tom Fagan had planned for later at his new house. Tom was a bit disappointed to see his old house destroyed like that, but admitted the old place was a fixer-upper anyway. The neighbors were all thrilled to meet the Avengers, though they confessed that Camzotz was wearing an awfully frightening costume and they were afraid the children would be too scared. The kids weren't scared a bit, though. One kid asked Camzotz if he was Batman. The police came to take the Collector into custody, but then Dan and a couple other officers stuck around for the party, as well as for ogling Mantis, the Black Widow, and the Scarlet Witch.

"As you were, officers," Clint joked to get the policemen away from Natasha. "How are you feeling, babe?"

"The only thing that hurts is my pride, dear," she said.

"Because the Collector captured you? He got me too."

"No, darling, because you haven't bobbed for apples yet," she joked.

Camzotz took quickly to English. He vowed a terrible revenge on the human race if the Aztec empire was not the most powerful still on Earth, but had to admit that Halloween was pretty "cool" and that he might show up for next year's party.

"What do you think of going on Avengers' missions now?" Pietro asked Cynthia.

"I love it! When is the next one?" she asked, to which Wanda laughed heartily.

"Are all Halloweens as much fun as this one?" Mantis asked.

"I think this is the best one yet," the Swordsman said as he took Mantis in his arms and kissed her.

"Bacchus himself could not have done better!" Hercules declared. "Let all revel and enjoy this day! We have won the right to it!"

To which Hercules was answered with a rousing chorus of "Hear, hear!"


End file.
